Brooklynian

"Stop and frisk" is the lazy method of law enforcement. Community policing as a policy is a proven method to reducing crime and generally removes community/police tensions. The police now patrol the affected communities in cruisers with the windows rolled up tight. When have to get out of their cruisers, they are generally agitated to have done so. If you stroll down the streets in Manhattans' upscale business districts, community policing is very much in force. You can't go fifty yards on major avenues without two (2) officers being posted.

Community policing re-establishes the humanity of the NYPD and the community by placing a constant entity within the community. Through daily interaction, a cooperative relationship can be established between the members of the community and the "officers of the law". When police realize that they are their to maintain order by modeling "courtesy, professionalism and respect" then you will begin to get the reductions in crime that everyone seeks by the creation of a culture of humanity.

Culture is destiny.

Extremely well said.

whynot_31

By expanding the list of neighborhoods in which people must be treated like people, it might reduce the list of neighborhoods in which people refer to people as merely "pigs" or "perps".

Or are referred to as "mopes", "skels", or whatever derogative term can be mustered. These terms frequently are uttered by the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch. The two NY daily newspapers (the News and the Pus er Post) never seem to take the time to point out that a criminal needn't be demonized or sensationalized, just indicted and incarcerated.

The creation of a modicum of de-humanization by the media feeds into peoples latent (or not so latent) fears and enhances bigotry, racism and intolerance. For two of the latest examples see

1. Sanford, Florida

2. Bronx. N.Y

Today, Kelly wrote Quinn a letter stating that the NYPD will improve.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/05/17/nyregion/17stopandfrisk.html

Progress?

In an interesting development, the Judge has stated that the specific types of Stop and Frisks covered by the above decision can continue.

The WSJ seems to do a pretty good job explaining her rationale in this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/AP2043cf7ffd9545a9a0133777a1ab6e17.html?mod=WSJ_NY_LEFTAPHeadlines

Reasonably complex stuff.

A criminal justice institute, Vera, is trying to stir interest in its soon-to-be-released report on the subject.

I find Vera to be more calm, thoughtful and insightful than most of the entities that cover the topic.

New Study Explores the Experience of Stop and Frisk on Young People in Highly Patrolled Neighborhoods

New York City has seen a steady decline in its jail population as well as a dramatic decrease in its crime rate over the past two decades—phenomena that have intrigued criminologists and social science researchers who have tried to explain their causes. On the other hand, misdemeanor arrests have risen to record levels, and police interactions with city residents in the most heavily patrolled neighborhoods have soared since 2002 when the New York City Police Department (NYPD) instituted a preventive policing strategy that features stop, question, and frisk. Commonly known as stop and frisk, this technique permits a police officer who has reasonable suspicion that a person may be engaged in criminal activity to stop that person on the street, question him, and sometimes pat him down for contraband. In 2011 (the latest full year for which there is data) the NYPD conducted more than 685,000 stops, of which approximately 90 percent involved non-white suspects.

Whether and how stop and frisk is connected to the drop in crime is the subject of considerable attention in the media, by researchers, advocates, and the public. Proponents who support the use and scale of stop and frisk credit the technique for getting weapons off the streets and being an essential tool for law enforcement in making neighborhoods, especially high crime neighborhoods, safer. Those who oppose the practice argue that there is no proof that it increases public safety and considerable evidence that it leads to unconstitutional intrusions in the lives of those who have done nothing wrong as well as longer term harmful effects for this largely minority population.

Lacking in the debate is research about how residents of highly-patrolled communities experience stop and frisk. Do residents say they are safer because of the heavy police presence, or do they say they are more vulnerable to unjustified stops? Do they regard police conduct during stop-and-frisk interactions as respectful and fair, or do they claim their rights are being violated? What is the impact of the heavy police presence and high level of stop and frisk activity on individuals, their families, and communities?

To address these issues, the Vera Institute of Justice embarked in late 2011 on a multi-method study aimed at gathering evidence and analyzing how police stops affect the lives of young people living in neighborhoods with high police presence. Vera researchers are focused on five neighborhoods where the practice of stop, question, and frisk is used intensively: East New York; Bedford-Stuyvesant; East Harlem; the South Bronx; and Jamaica, Queens. The confluence of high police presence and comparatively high levels of violent crime make these neighborhoods particularly apt settings for a study of police-civilian relations, through the prism of residents’ experiences of fear and safety.

“While many people have concerns about the efficacy and fairness of stop and frisk, this study is trying to look at something different by gaining insight into whether and how the practice affects young people’s perceptions of procedural justice, safety, and police efficacy, and their sense of themselves as community members,” said Jennifer Fratello, associate research director of Vera’s Center on Youth Justice and the study’s principal investigator. “We hope it provides recommendations about ways that residents and police can work better in mutually beneficial ways.”

Using interviews and surveys, Vera researchers have gathered information in the five neighborhoods about residents’ personal experiences with the police and their attitudes toward safety, their fear of crime, and their view of law enforcement. By analyzing the data gathered from the people most affected by preventive policing and examining the intersection of these experiences and attitudes, the study aims to delineate the complex relationship between residents of these neighborhoods and the police. By looking more closely at these dynamics in each of the five study sites, the study will provide a more nuanced understanding of how police and residents in each community can work together to promote public safety in a way residents find both satisfying and effective.

Vera expects to release a report on the study’s findings in late spring.

For more information, contact Mary Crowley, director of communications. Phone: (212) 376-3172. E-mail: mcrowley@vera.org

The main legal case against "Stop and Frisk" is being brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

It has been working its way through the court system for quite sometime, and several news sources are reporting that it will begin to be heard this Monday, March 18th and continue through much of April.

The case, known as Floyd et al. v. City of New York et. al, challenges the NYPD's practices on the basis of racial profiling and the constitutionality of how the practice (Stop and Frisk) is presently being used in NYC.

Outlets such as the NYT will give the case lots of coverage, because it has the potential of influencing how "Terry Stops" are conducted throughout the nation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop

It will be heard in the Southern District of New York Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, Manhattan. The trial will take place before Judge Shira Scheindlin in Courtroom 15-C.

It never ceases to amaze me how right wingers are so preoccupied with 2d Amendment rights but conveniently ignore all others such as:

Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated"

and, Fifth Amendment:

"... No person ... shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"

The courts have allowed police to stop and frisk people without warrants nor any justification other than the pretense that one is a risk to society by being black or brown. If right wingers had even the slightest iota of principle, they would be the first ones to object to these political crimes against innocents.

Actually, the courts have not sanctioned stopping people on the basis of skin color.

Technically you are correct. But all a cop has to do is to make up a claim of "suspicion" and the courts allow the stupid stop & frisks to continue.

Here in Minnesota, just like there in NY where I grew up, there is just as much drugs in the suburbs as there is in the inner city. Do you see cops stopping and frisking anyone in suburbia? No you don't. Same here. Why? Well, we all know the answer.

It is quotes like these that make me believe this case will address the quantity of people affected by the policy, but the demographics will remain constant:

Bloomberg’s claim that stop-and-frisk has helped reverse New York crime trends -- a boast echoed by city lawyers in the federal trial this week -- fails to recognize the human toll of the tactic, said City Councilman Jumaane D. Williams, who represents portions of Brooklyn.

“Mayor Bloomberg has failed to show any correlation between his use of stop, question and frisk and the rates of weapons recovery, shootings or murders,” Williams said. “He is wedded to a failed policy and has shown a unique obstinacy in defending it against an overwhelming mountain of evidence. ... “The cost of stop, question and frisk in money, lives and overall community health is immeasurable.”

Daily News

Given everything else that is in the news, the Stop and Frisk Trial has not been something that the media and public has spent a lot of time on.

This article points out that this trial is coming to a close, closing arguments are expected to be made on Monday.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ny-frisk-judge-calls-criticism-belt-19211855#.UZmMTCtARZ8

Needless to say, not all of the mayoral candidates believe that the policy does more harm than good:

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/03/8456693/john-liu-provokes-stop-and-frisk-backlash-bill-thompson

This is how police quotas work in the middle america

I have an aunt that used to live in Tallmage, OH. It very close to where the quotas homeowner describes are in effect.

Clearly, those police have been ordered to act in a way that maintains their present relationship with the public.

In my opinion, the press does a poor job of covering the reasons the police implement Stop and Frisk on the scale that have been.

The press likes to state that the practice is supposed to catch people with weapons.

However, the NYPD does not seem to have this as its main motivation. To them, the practice is a way to deter people from carrying guns and build a large database of people who are in high crime areas, during the hours which most crimes occur.

This latest ruling effectively makes the practive ineffective at building a database: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/nyregion/city-to-trim-a-database-on-police-stops.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0

Needless to say, the police will still have "the right" to stop and frisk people, but they will have less of an incentive to do so.

...while this won't give CCR what it seems to crave most (A judge ruling that "Stop and frisk is racial profiling and therefore illegal"), it will reduce the use of Stop and Frisk.

Courts and politicians also need to stop police when people try to record their activities. Any cop found doing so should be immediately arrested, suspended, and heavily fined.

Now that the primaries are over and the court case has been decided, I expect media attention to rapidly fade.

However, now is when the real work begins. Now is when we see whether this court case and election has any meaningful impact in the neighborhoods we claimed to want to help:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/da-charles-hynes-soon-to-be-successor-ken-thompson-outlines-big-plans-article-1.1452972

This is not a matter of proving that arresting uneducated, unemployed, addicted persons does not change their behavior over the long term. We proved that long ago.

...this is about looking for some other alternative that the public will find platable.

As a result of the court decisions, DeBlasio and a new police commissioner, the NYPD doesn't stop and frisk as much. However, the police are still remaining quite busy, and the subjects of their efforts are likely disproportionately members of historically disadvantaged groups:

"Arrests Of Subway Panhandlers Triples

Arrests of peddlers and panhandlers in the subway have more than tripled over the past two months, compared to the same period last year. Officers have made 274 arrests. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton included the reduction of panhandling in the subway as a top priority in his inauguration speech. In a similar fashion, arrests at public housing for such violations as drinking beer in public and riding a bike on the sidewalk have increased to 21 percent from the same period last year. Such data is now available under Bratton, and was kept under wraps by the previous commissioner. Bratton sees the crackdown on low-level offenses as a way to deter more serious ones. Stop-and-frisks in the transit system, however, have dropped 96 percent."

quote from Gotham Gazette.

sources:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303824204579423741063112908

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/nyregion/arrests-of-panhandlers-and-peddlers-on-subway-increase-sharply-under-bratton.html?_r=0

Is arresting people for riding their bike on the sidewalk in front of housing projects progress over stopping and frisking people who were hanging out there?

Our new commissioner is already showing himself to be smarter than the previous one: